AHSC635 Land of the Free

Happy HOT Monday, everyone! Phew, what a scorcher of a weekend! Hope you are all staying cool here in the US!  It's time for a new Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge, and here's the sketch:

My card deviates a wee bit from the sketch but hopefully you can see it!  Here we go:

I have had these patriotic stamps from Waltzingmouse, which has sadly closed, for years and I think this might be the second time I've used them!  (I did do a shadow box recently with them, so stay tuned!)  I stamped the Statue of Liberty on a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock, isolated the torch, then diecut the remaining image with the Everyday Arches dies.  I used my Sanded background stamp again to give it some "aging" like the Honey Bee paper I used for the background:

I stamped and diecut the sentiment on another piece of the Honey Bee paper, then added this on the inside of my Misty Moonlight card:

This is a lovely sketch and I hope you'll hop over to the AHSC blog to play along!

On a personal note, I don't normally send out July 4th cards, but I might just send this one to my second cousin's son  (I always jokingly tell my cousin, if I ever had a son, I would want him to be just like his son Jonathan)!  Jonathan is a godly young man who loves the Lord and is also a Civil War reenactor, along with his dad Steve, (my second cousin). Jonathan found out we have a relative who fought in the Pennsylvania 56st Regiment, so he asked several of our family members if we wanted to take a trip to Gettysburg, which is only a couple of hours from our home, so we finally made the trip on Saturday.  It was HOT, let me tell you! We had a tour guide who was extremely knowledgeable, and we visited various sites around the battlefield, most importantly the Pennsylvania Memorial where we found our relative's name listed under the 56th! Coincidentally, John found one of his relatives listed under the 121st!  Here's Jonathan with the flag he made (or maybe his mom made it), replicating the original flag of the 56th:

Here's my cousin Steve, his grandson Oliver, and Dana, listening to the tour guide:

Some of the info went over Jameson & Sawyer's heads, but they will grow to learn more about it as they get older.  I believe they've been to Gettysburg before, so I am sure they'll be back!

Maven was interested in the cannons!

She was also fascinated by my water bottle and the cookies I brought! Jameson was being funny, wearing her hat:

Cassidy was a great help with the kids too!

Thanks for indulging me!!  Although it was a hot day, it was great to get together with our family, even though the solemnity of the battlefield was constantly on my mind. To have a country divided is a sad thing.  And I cannot imagine how hot those soldiers were in those woolen uniforms!  God bless America and those who fight for our freedoms!

Thanks for visiting today, enjoy it and be blessed.

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Sanded (ret), USA1776 (Waltzingmouse, ret)
Card stock & Papers	Basic Beige, Real Red, Misty Moonlight, Americana (Honey Bee)
Ink	Night of Navy, Crumb Cake
Accessories	Dimensionals
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Everyday Arches Dies, Banner Dies (Pink & Main), Iconic Imagery Dies, 1" Circle Punch (ret)

PP462 Grateful

Happy Sunday, everyone!  Time for another Paper Players challenge, and Joanne has given us a wonderful theme this week:

Over the weekend, we went yard saling and I found an Eldreth pottery crock with a Noah's ark and rainbow on it.  In our area, Eldreth pottery is very popular, now even more so as the studio has recently gone out of business.  All the crocks and figurines were made locally, not only in the traditional salt glaze blue but other colors as well.  I have quite a few pieces but one of my friends at church is an avid collector...in fact, last weekend she found a little piece in a box lot I had purchased for a song, and I gave it to her!  Anyway, here's mine:

This one is from 1998, and I believe it's a second, because the images aren't real clear...but why I am going on and on about crocks?  Because this was the inspiration for my card today:

I used the In(k)spire Me sketch:

and pulled out a few old SU sets:  Truly Grateful, Sanded and Falling Leaves.  I started by inking the Sanded background stamp with Gray Granite ink and stamping on some Smoky Slate cardstock.  Then, I inked up the wheat and acorn stamps with Blueberry Bushel ink, lightly spritzed them with water to give it more of a blurry look, then stamped them and once dry, diecut them out:

I added some banners, one stamped with the honeycomb image from Butterfly Basics, one plain Blueberry Bushel, and the other, some BB DSP that I swiped with a Gray Granite ink pad to make it less bright.  My final additions were a sentiment punched with the Modern Label punch, a Linen thread bow, and this sentiment on the inside:

Oh, and you can't see it but I embossed the front of my card with the Subtle EF too...I wish it would show up better!  It's a nice touch!

I think this is a nice change from the traditional fall/Thanksgiving colors and it was fun to play around with the images!  I hope you'll find some grateful/thankful inspiration and play along with us!  Be sure to check out the Paper Players blog to see what the designers created, and share yours with us as well! Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Nothing like a little Halloween mask shopping after karate practice!!!

Too funny!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Subtle EF, Truly Grateful (ret), Falling Leaves (ret), Sanded Background (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Thick White, Blueberry Bushel, Smoky Slate, Blueberry Bushel DSP
Ink	Blueberry Bushel, Gray Granite
Accessories	Linen Thread, Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Stitched Shapes Dies, Modern Label Punch (ret), Spritzer, Subtle EF

TSOT264 Happy Birthday

Hi everyone!  Tuesday is upon us...I am not sure where Monday went, but it sure passed by quickly...and it is time for a Try Stampin' On Tuesday sketch!  There is an optional theme of helping hands as well, but I opted for a birthday this week:

I've been digging into my stash of designer papers and found this cool turquoise, green and brown print, so I set to work finding some goodies to go with it! Here's my final outcome:

I started by finding a scrap of some old Basic Grey 6x6 paper in a cool lime green....don't even know the name of the pad....and it matched the scritchy-scratchy look of the patterned paper, so I used that for my top portion and even cut the letters "h" & "b" from them, layering them for a thicker look (dies from Papertrey):

I inked up the dotted circle from an older Waltzingmouse set called Country Labels (just found out WM is going out of business--WAAAAHHH!!  Love her stuff!) in Tempting Turquoise, and the dotted image from Timeless Textures in Lucky Limeade for the horizontal pieces; the vertical piece was a piece of Early Espresso stamped with the retired Sanded background stamp in white craft ink.  A little bit of deckle edging and three candy dots finished it off!  Another masculine b-day card for my stash!  

I hope you'll play along with our sketch this week!  You can find all the samples as well as a link to share your creation at the TSOT blog, or lots of people are finding us on Facebook!  Either way, we hope you'll play!

Although Sunday was a bit chilly in our area for an Easter egg hunt, Cassidy and Dominic did manage to find one at a nearby park on Saturday, and set off to find some goodies:

I love Dominic's Minion bucket....there's a boy with great expectations!  Enjoy your day!